To swipe from my RPFS tribe post (QE I):

Furthering the timeline, I'm quoting from an e-mail Luisa sent to the St. George group about two years ago. It's sort of "public domain," so I'm sure Luisa won't mind me reprinting it.

The song in question is "Long May She Reign (In Majesty Glorious)" and Luisa was responding to someone who was asking after its origin. In the course of that response, she gave some dates certain with regard to who occupied the QE1 spot at the time:

Quote follows:

<<As for the song, "Long May She Reign," I know he (Scott Beach) wrote the lyrics especially for Ron & Phyllis Patterson's Faire, but I do NOT think is older than 1975, (though I may be wrong) because Scott was also a close friend of Peg Long and a huge fan of her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I. OTOH, I was onstage during the RPFS73 Queen's Show (as a supernumerary) and watched the RPFS74 show every day and do NOT recall that song at all. Now, those latter two years were also Julie Meredith's last faires playing the part of QER-I, and I think the song LMSR was intended to "break away" from the old show while also establishing a "new tradition" for the Faire, so that's pretty much how I go about "dating" it at 1975.>> end of quote

Luisa's recollection fits perfectly with my recollection of that period. I was at RPFS in 1975. Patrick Duffy, Samantha Johns, et al. were in place, Peg was QE1.

Taking it back a bit further, I was a map passer/information booth slut/volunteer for Beth Bagwell (Gillian's mom and Dick's ex) during 1974 & 1975. I vividly recall that most of the promo material contained pictures of Julie Meredith and clients/turkeys (now there's a word you don't hear anymore--the royal birds) would always comment that the QE1 in the booklet was not the one at the Faire. And I think that was 1974 and 1975.

So that would mean Julie's last RPFS was 1974, Peg started at RPFN in fall of 1974 and continued her stint at RPFS in 1975.....

Another e-mail from Luisa confirms that sequence.

Not sure if any of this is true.

In response to the RPFS vs. RPFN, so much of it is one and the same, especially insofar as Court was concerned. Peg was entertainment director and QE1. So it's hard to get the history right without dealing with both Faires as a unit. To further confuse things, Dickens was in the middle of all of this, so it was a 24/7/356 Faire thing in those days, with a lot of the same folks doing double duty. David Springhorn was even Mr. Fezziwig for a bit!

Noel G.

Whew!!!!!

Carolie Tarbell made that yellow banana dress (and a corset) for Luisa just for that Faire; it was the only material they had on hand, I think. 1978 must have been the year of Peg's surgery. I know Luisa played the Queen for one Faire, followed by a short space of time before Peg retired. Seems reasonable it was 78.

Do you mean, Athene? Or is this another woman who came before Rachel or between Rachel and Julie.
Since this is the Agoura tribe and Luisa went to Devore, I stopped the timeline there.

Here is something about Rachel Rosenthal:
.
www.rachelrosenthal.org/highperf.html